Using DataHub Skills
You have access to 5 DataHub catalog interaction skills. Use this guide to route the user's request to the correct skill.
Skill Routing Table
| User Intent | Skill | Command |
|---|---|---|
| Find or discover entities (search, browse, filter, list) | Search | /datahub-search |
| Answer a question about the catalog ("who owns X?", "how many X?") | Search | /datahub-search |
| Update metadata (descriptions, tags, glossary terms, ownership, deprecation) | Enrich | /datahub-enrich |
| Explore lineage (upstream, downstream, impact, root cause, dependencies) | Lineage | /datahub-lineage |
| Data quality (assertions, incidents, health checks) | Quality | /datahub-quality |
| Notifications (subscribe to assertion failures, incidents) | Quality | /datahub-quality |
| Install CLI, authenticate, verify connection | Setup | /datahub-setup |
| Configure default scopes and profiles | Setup | /datahub-setup |
Disambiguation Rules
When the intent is ambiguous, use these rules:
"Tag" requests
- All tag operations (PII, sensitive, important, reviewed, team-x) → Enrich (general metadata)
"Domain" requests
- Filter search to a domain → Search (scoped search)
- Configure default domain → Setup (profile configuration)
"Quality" or "health" requests
- Failing assertions, active incidents, health status → Quality
- Create assertions, run quality checks, raise incidents → Quality
- Subscribe to assertion failures or incidents → Quality
- Metadata quality/documentation/ownership coverage → Use Search to gather the data and synthesize the answer
Lineage vs. Search
- "What feeds into X" / "what depends on X" / "impact of changing X" → Lineage
- "What dashboards use table X" → Lineage (relationship traversal)
- "Who owns X" / "what is X" → Search (metadata lookup)
Setup vs. other skills
- "Set up" / "install" / "authenticate" / "verify connection" → Setup
- "Configure defaults" / "set default platform" / "create profile" → Setup
- "Check if DataHub is working" → Setup (connectivity verification)
CLI Attribution
When running datahub CLI commands, pass -C skill=<name> on the root command so usage can be attributed:
datahub -C skill=datahub-search search "revenue"
datahub -C skill=datahub-enrich graphql --query '...'
datahub -C skill=datahub-lineage lineage --urn "..."Use the skill name from the YAML frontmatter. If -C is not recognized, omit it — the command works the same without it.
Critical Rules
- Never guess the skill. If the intent is genuinely ambiguous, ask the user to clarify.
- One skill per request unless the user explicitly asks for multiple operations.
- Lineage is for lineage only — not for general "what is this entity?" questions (that's Search).
- Search handles ad-hoc questions. "Who owns X?" and "what columns does X have?" are Search questions, not Lineage.
- Enrich handles all metadata writes — descriptions, tags, glossary terms, ownership, deprecation.
- Quality handles data quality — assertions, incidents, health checks, subscriptions.
- Setup handles environment and configuration — CLI install, auth, connectivity, default scopes.